So, you have made your way on an out-of-town trip. A few days in a strange town at a business convention and you’ll be staying at a hotel. You haven’t ever cheated on your wife or girlfriend before but who is gonna find out, right? Besides, she decided to start an argument with you and this is your way of paying her back for it. So you check the local back page ads and maybe even Craigslist and you find what it is you are looking for. Harmless fun, right? The girl makes a little dough, you have some fun and no one is the wiser. You are thinking no harm, no foul.

What you don’t know is……

1. The girl is unwilling but she acts like it’s all about you.

2. The girl is underage, but heck, she looks like she is at least 24.

3. The girl is being manipulated and she is not herself because she is being pumped full of drugs daily to keep her in line. Her trafficker has turned her into an addict and if she doesn’t act right, no drugs, so she has motivation to lie to you and make you think she’s doing this because she enjoys it!

4. Now that you have paid her, she takes the money to her controller, or pimp. (also known as trafficker)5. You have just paid someone else to allow YOU to rape a child……………..

Haven’t you heard about child sex trafficking and how terrible it is? Haven’t you wondered what kind of animal could possibly have sex with a child and what sort of person would do that? As it turns out, it happens to be someone exactly like you. Take a good long look in the mirror, YOU are now a child molester/rapist and didn’t even know it. You are lucky that you didn’t get caught because if you had…well we don’t want to go there now do we?????? I think that it’s time to rethink how we men think about prostitution. Sure, there are some real sickos out there that would want to harm/exploit a child but to be one of them, albeit unknowingly, just isn’t you is it? Let’s take the demand away from the people who control these children. No demand equals no money, no money equals no reason to kidnap or control young girls anymore….. Part of he problem is the male gender. Without us unknowingly enlisting the services of children they would be out of business.

Hopefully this hasn’t already happened to you and now you are wondering if you have committed this heinous crime against a child. Just remember, all is not as it appears to be….

The Webster’s dictionary defines complacency as follows:

1: self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies

2: an instance of usually unaware or uninformed self-satisfaction

**

There is a growing problem with all drivers around the country. This includes those who drive cars and truck drivers!

**

WHEN YOU BECOME COMPLACENT YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO ATTEMPT MULTITASKING WHILE DRIVING!

THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS!

**

Nobody is so good that they can safely do anything other than pay attention to the road, while driving!

**

FACT:

At any given daylight moment across America, approximately 660,000 drivers are using cell phones or manipulating electronic devices while driving, a number that has held steady since 2010.

**

FACT:

Five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting. When traveling at 55mph, that’s enough time to cover the length of a football field blindfolded.

**

The bottom line here is that the more comfortable you are about driving, whether it be a car or truck, the more likely you are to engage in distracting behavior while driving!

**

COMPLACENCY leads to DISRACTED DRIVING

**

Drivers of all types of vehicles have been observed doing the following:

**

Using hand held phone

Texting

Gaming

Eating

Looking at computers

Putting on make up

Shaving

Reading newspapers or books

Adjusting their radio

Reaching for something

**

And the list goes on…….

**

Distracted driving is a deadly behavior. According to AAA, federal estimates suggest that distraction contributes to 16% of all fatal crashes, leading to around 5,000 deaths every year.

**

The bottom line is that no matter how much experience you have, there is no room for complacency in regards to any type of driving.

**

Always keep in mind that you are never too good or too experienced. Remind yourself that no matter what the situation, paying attention is crucial and there’s nothing wrong with reporting those you observe that are engaging in dangerous behavior!

Jumping before you LOOK!

We try to set a good example. We have tried to give accurate advice and conduct ourselves and our business in a legal and respectable manner. However, we recently made an error in judgement. A good move was made by jumping out of a bad situation in which we had been deceived regarding pay. Then without looking, a “too good to be true” situation popped up and because we were not thinking too clearly after being deceived, we eagerly jumped in without our water wings and almost drowned! Needless to say, it was deeper than we had anticipated!

Do you know how to look up your company’s safety record? Do you know what an FMCSA intervention is? These are valuable tools that each and every driver should be familiar with. Yes, even company drivers should be armed with this information too!

As many of us know, the FMCSA is coming down hard on carriers with poor safety records. They are also on to the “CHAMELION” racket as well and going after those who think they’ve found an easy way to beat the system even harder.

For many years, trucking companies who were on the verge of being shut down, simply changed ownership over to a family member or friend and then applied for a new DOT number. Some just simply got a new DOT number. There are a number of ways you can make it look like the “bad” company is gone and a new company is in its place. Changing the name of the company, owner, DOT number or whatever combination they may choose to hide their bad record seems like an easy answer. For a long time, many company owners have been getting away with it and continuing the bad behavior and when their numbers go up, they do it all over again.

Well, I’m not sure which “Sherlock Holmes” in the government put the pieces together but the fact is THEY DID! They are on to this naughty little scheme and they are madder than heck over it. You see, even the government doesn’t like to be fooled or made a fool of, so they are putting up with it no more and targeting these carriers with an iron fist.

With all that being said, we did all we could, til it was time to walk away! We made the mistake of looking up the DOT# “after” we had already leased on and found that pretty little phrase “EXCEEDS INTERVENTION THRESHOLD”!!

I asked the owner about it. I asked him if he was aware of his safety rating. He told me he was aware and he was working on it. Others that worked there told me he was working on it alright! He had never even looked at a driver’s log, had no safety program and no compliance plan at all. Everyone there told me they were just waiting for the feds to show up and shut him down. So I’m thinking I should say something and I did, several times. I gave him the name of a compliance specialist. I referred a friend who has safety director experience and even offered to begin auditing the logs myself. He kept telling me “I’ve got it handled”, and that’s just a few examples of what a great business this was!

Then one day it slipped out that there was a new DOT number going into effect in a couple of weeks. I said nothing. Then I made a few calls, got on the internet, found a few things out and made the decision to get out. It was time to give up.

We are sad about this experience because we really thought we had found a long-term home, for a minute anyway!

Red flag after red flag and a bit of research told me to RUN AS FAST AS I COULD!

Here is a link to look up a DOT or MC number to see the truth about a carrier… CLICK HERE

The last thing anybody needs is to pull into a weigh station and find out your company has been shut down!

I hope that the lesson we learned can be helpful to someone else and I would also like to thank those of you who helped us “see through the smoke screen and save us from drowning”! You know who you are and we sincerely thank you!!!

As more of us decide to quit smoking or at least try……. “vaping” has become a popular alternative for many truckers. It seems that more truck stops are carrying supplies for vaping which makes it very convenient.

WHAT’S VAPING?

Vaping is the act of using an E-Cig, inhaling vapor instead of poisons, thus the term “vaping”!

MAJIC MAN “48 hours since I’ve had a real cigarette, except for a couple of times that I had a slight urge for one, which I didn’t (don’t have any anyhow), doing okay. Darth Vaper is doing its job….. been breathing much better too since I got and started using it just before Christmas. I realize it’s substitution, BUT water vapor with a bit of flavoring and a little nicotine is much better than tobacco with all the chemicals and additives. I’m not ready to say ex-smoker yet… but……. vaping is better than smoking, and I do not plan on ever buying a pack of cigarettes again…. so…….”

As I sat in a booth near the bar area of the T. A. this morning, I was listening to some of the drivers telling stories (complaining) about “close calls”. It made me wonder if it would be possible to put a different spin on the “trucker talk” we usually hear!

WHAT IF….. we shared stories about the actions we took to AVOID a potentially bad situation instead of complaining about the “four wheeler” that almost cost us our career?

Would that really be so bad?

Can you imagine hearing and seeing, what would amount to, the sharing of “safety tips” instead of the ever dreadful “bitching”?

Imagine opening up your Face Book news feed and looking at information that was actually useful!

What good is it to share horror stories without telling “the rest of the story”?

I know is quite a far fetched idea but as that may be, it’s worth a try isn’t it?

Just think of how much we could actually learn from each other! Also, think about the drivers with less experience and how much they could learn!

It’s really very simple, isn’t it?

So what do ya say? With the year coming to an end and a new year, right around the corner, let’s give it a try!!

In the comments below, tell us about a situation that made you pull out your thinking cap! How did YOU avoid a disaster?

It doesn’t have to be elaborate. You can even tell us about your “pro-active” way of driving that keeps you out of harms way, most of the time.

NOTE: All comments are moderated and may not appear on the site immediately. It could take up to 24 hours to see your comment published.

I have recently noticed a big difference in the calibur of truck stops out here on the road. Some truck stops seem to say “get your fuel and get lost”!!!!! They aren’t driver friendly at all.

Some truck stops have no place for a driver to relax and some don’t even have a place for a driver to sit, that is unless he sits in one of the “fast food” tables along with a bunch of screaming kids in an uncomfortable metal chair.

These particular truck stops also have only the bare necessities when it comes to basic services. A generic bare bones shower with a shower head that might or might not get you wet, much less clean. Some truck stops also make you leave a deposit in fear of you might take one of their expensive plush towels they provide for you. Yes, that’s what I’d like, a towel…

You just never know who or what you will run into at a truck stop these days!

We stopped for the night at the Petro in Oak Grove Mo. and were outside with Rocky while he did his sniffing routine! There was a very nice couple out there also with their dog. They told us about “JAKE”, one of Hunters Travelers and asked if we’d like to help out by taking him with us for a little bit! We are glad he will be with us for a little while and even Bobby Boofay is going to help out!

Hunter is a 14 year old boy from a small town in OHIO. He has stage 4 Renal failure-chronic pancreatitus and Biliary cirhosis of the liver.

Now I’m not going to give too much away because we would like for all of you to show your support by going to his facebook page.

All I can say is he’s going to have so much fun with Bobby Boofay and we promise not to let him get in any trouble!

It’s times like this that really make us LOVE trucking!!

If you would like to have “jake” travel with you, please send us a note!